When designing our financial education products, we keep our values at the forefront as they’re the root of why we do what we do. As a relatively small company that began in a dorm room and has flourished into a successful fintech, Zogo is constantly evolving to best meet the needs of our users, financial partners, and address the state of the world. We’re a highly collaborative team of Gen Zers and young Millennials that started this financial literacy company because the problem we’re trying to solve has affected each one of us. 

Financial education in schools is severely lacking, and even in privileged places where it does exist, it’s almost always outdated and below-par. Financial literacy shouldn’t be gate kept for the select few, yet all too often, it is — but we’re on a mission to change that for good. Let’s take a closer look at some of the values that drive the Zogo mission and shape our award-winning suite of products and services. 

1. More Knowledge, Less Noise 

One of our focuses is making financial education easily-digestible for everyone — while one of our main audiences is Generation Z, who are young and technologically-savvy, we want our lessons to be comprehensive for all demographics in need of financial literacy help. That’s why we make financial topics that typically take up chapters in textbooks into short-form, bite-sized learning modules that can be completed in a matter of minutes. Often, too much extraneous information makes its way into financial education classes/lessons, making complex subjects unnecessarily hard to understand. At Zogo, they’re simplified not to dumb them down, but to make them accessible to all. 

2. Living Ahead of the Curve

Another of our core values is striving to stay ahead of the curve, up with times, and on top of the latest technology. By embedding high-quality financial education into a modern, functional, free app format, we’ve made this crucial subject available with anyone who has access to a smartphone — a major improvement from decades past where financial literacy has traditionally been taught in overcrowded classrooms and puts the students to sleep in the process. We gamify the lessons to make them enticing and fun, and our users earn points for completing modules and reaching certain goals. Once enough points are earned, they can be redeemed for gift cards, which is a huge selling point that keeps people coming back on a regular basis to learn.

In addition to our incentivizing reward system we also have a fairly new streak feature that encourages our users to return daily and complete at least one module — a lesson a day keeps the streak from going away, as they say! Streak features are an increasingly common aspect of digitized gaming, learning, and even communicating (think Snapchat), and they’re an interesting tactic for keeping app users engaged. We know that staying consistent with learning can be difficult, which is why we try to encourage and reward our users as much as we can.

3. A Bridge for Every Gap

Today, only 1 in 4 high school students has guaranteed access to financial education, and the playing field across demographics is dramatically uneven. White communities consistently rank higher in financial literacy and income than Black, Hispanic, and Latino communities — it’s a prevalent issue that affects the latter groups’ abilities to create generational wealth, have quality of life, and save for the future, among many other things. It is not fair, but it can be addressed and tackled, and we’re attempting to do so in a myriad of ways. 

By making financial education into a rewarding game on people’s phones, we’ve made it increasingly accessible and interesting to anyone with access to a smartphone. This helps to close the gap between those who are offered financial education in school and those who are not. Second, our continuous efforts and partnerships with local credit unions and community banks to bolster their educational offerings directly benefits the members of those institutions’ communities — our partners are often doing work with public schools to bring comprehensive, modern financial education to students, and our platforms have made it infinitely easier. 

4. Reward Risk

Risk is an aspect of life that, no matter how well you plan, always seems to be looming — when it comes to finances, though, it can feel extra scary! That’s why one of our driving values is rewarding those who step up to the challenge of facing risk head-on. Whether it’s going out for that new, higher paying job you’re not sure you can get or investing in an up-and-coming company, taking smart, informed, calculated financial risks can pay off extremely well. Of course, reckless financial risks can end in the opposite way, which is why we specialize in high-quality, comprehensive education that empowers our users to make smart choices but never to play it too safe. There’s a whole wide world out there full of financial possibilities and we greatly value being a resource for those who are willing to go for it. 

5. Fun for Everyone

There’s simply no denying it: traditional financial education courses are, well, lackluster. Financial literacy can be a tedious subject to learn when it’s not taught the right way — it can also be daunting, confusing, and handling financial matters can be anxiety-inducing. That’s why one of our values became making financial literacy genuinely fun for everyone, not just those accounting majors who somehow specialize in these subjects. Our courses are gamified, simplistic, enticing, and easily-digestible so that everyone who wants or needs to learn about financial topics can figure it out and enjoy the process! Financial literacy doesn’t have to be drab, and we’re proving that more and more every single day. 

The Bottom Line

At Zogo, our values drive everything we do — from our educational efforts to our marketing strategies, we keep them close. We’re constantly evolving, are always open to new ideas, and have a genuine drive to make a real positive impact on this world. 

To learn more about our financial education programs, and how partnering with us can help your institution increase member education and loyalty, request a demo with our talented team!